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We are set to host the Aberdeen Masters

Submitted by admin on Wed, 05/08/2015 - 11:37

Meldrum House hosts
first for Scottish golf

Meldrum House Country Hotel is set to welcome some of golf’s most recognised players during the inaugural Aberdeen Masters. The award-winning Aberdeenshire resort will become the first venue at the Home of Golf to host a Senior Golf Circuit event with an impressive field battling it out over the celebrated championship course between the 17-19 August.

Seasoned professionals, including former Ryder Cup stars, European Tour winners and national champions, will tee it up alongside elite amateurs to compete for a £40,000 purse. The Aberdeen Masters, which becomes part of a European-wide tour featuring events in Germany, Portugal, Poland, Finland, England and Spain, will be a 54-hole strokeplay tournament played in the idyllic parkland setting of Meldrum House. The field has been limited to 60 professionals and 12 amateurs with a category one handicap, with all players being at least 48 years of age on or before 17th August 2015.

“This is a first for us and a first for golf in Scotland,” said Andy Burgess, the estate’s chief executive. “We are extremely proud and excited that the organisers are launching their maiden Scottish Senior Golf Circuit event here at Meldrum House. Over the years we have been fortunate to host some exceptional tournaments. With the kind of quality field competing for the title, I think the Aberdeen Masters could be another outstanding contest at Meldrum.”

Famed for its manicured greens and cross-cut fairways, Meldrum House has hosted a series of prestigious tournaments including one of the world’s oldest professional championships, The Northern Open, on three separate occasions. This latest event will see some of Europe’s elite players returning to a familiar venue with some surprises up its sleeve.

“This will be the first time we have hosted a pro-level tournament since making a series of changes to the course,” explained Burgess. “Many of the players will have played here before, but none of them will have seen the alterations so it will be interesting to see how they get on. Our members have certainly welcomed the improvements and the general consensus is that the tweaks have had a positive impact on the layout. It should make for an interesting few days.”

The latest phase of developments at Meldrum House includes a £50,000 project to revamp the sixth, seventh and eighth holes which have all had lost-ball areas removed and fringe areas reshaped. The 17th, which received the lion’s share of the work, has seen its fairway widened by 35 yards and a picturesque pond significantly changed in order to enhance the risk-and-reward nature of the hole. Elsewhere, the club’s proshop has been revamped and plans have been made for a multi-million pound expansion that will add a further 28 bedrooms and an impressive ballroom to the resort.

“Meldrum is one of the finest parkland courses in Scotland,” says tournament organiser Nick Robson. “It has been described to me as the next best inland layout to Loch Lomond, so it is clearly a very good course with great practice facilities. I am very confident the guys are really going to like it.”

With names like Paul Broadhurst, Gary Wolstenholme, Philip Price and Gordon Brand appearing on the tee sheet, this year’s Aberdeen Masters is set to be one of Scotland’s most hotly contested senior tournaments, and it won’t be just the big-name players in with a chance. “It is also an opportunity for some amateurs who might have, could have and should have been great players to cross swords with some of the guys who became cornerstones of European golf,” says Robson, who is a Senior Golf Circuit winner himself. “It’s extremely competitive, but a lot of fun.”

This year’s Aberdeen Masters will take place between 17-19 August and is sponsored by the Gym Rental Company, Thistle Windows & Conservatories and Meldrum House Country Hotel. The event is open to the public and free to attend.